


Goblin Fruit: Sweeter Than Honey From The Rock

by FayJay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 魔道祖师 | Módào Zǔshī (Cartoon)
Genre: Although this is a fusion of Ancient China and HPverse, Fusion, Gen, Hogwarts AU, Kinda, M/M, Magic, Multi, Multiple Pov, Potterverse AU, Quidditch on swords, TRIGGER WARNING for oblique references to Meng Yao’s canonical background, i am winging this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-03 03:42:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FayJay/pseuds/FayJay
Summary: Lans are always sorted into Ravenclaw.Lan Zhan has been worrying about this intensely all the way from Cloud Recesses, because if the Sorting Hat does not put him into Ravenclaw, that means he is letting down the Lan Clan, and disappointing his ancestors, and it means he won’t be in the same House as Lan Huan Er-ge, which will be Bad.(Hogwarts Fusion AU - Cultivation Wuxia world and the Potterverse stuffed in a blender, basically - kiiinda Ancient China, but not. And the Twin Jades of Lan are part-Veela, because of course they are.)





	1. Chapter 1

Lans are always sorted into Ravenclaw. 

Lan Zhan has been worrying about this intensely all the way from Cloud Recesses, because if the Sorting Hat does not put him into Ravenclaw, that means he is letting down the Lan Clan, and disappointing his ancestors, and it means he won’t be in the same House as Lan Huan Er-ge, which will be Bad.

But Lan Zhan has a very strong feeling that he _isn’t_ a Ravenclaw, even though all Lans since what appears to be the dawn of time have been sorted into Ravenclaw. 

In his silent heart Lan Zhan wants to be in his mother’s House, and he has a strong suspicion that the Sorting Hat will agree that this is where he belongs. He thinks that Lan Qiren may even think that it’s where he belongs, in all honesty, because on more than one occasion he has heard his Senior muttering that “Lan Wangji is too much his mother’s son - not like Lan Xichen, who is a good boy and proper Lan”. 

Lan Zhan tries. He tries with everything in him to live up to the Lan Clan rules; he has memorised them diligently, and he is obedient to a fault. 

...Right up until he isn’t, at which point wild qilin could not drag him away from doing whatever it is that he’s convinced himself is right. He is, Lan Qiren has opined on more than one occasion, as stubborn as a mule.

When his mother died, Lan Zhan knelt outside her house day after day, week after week, ignoring every word of reproof and punishment, patiently waiting for her to return. Veela were not like humans, he reasoned; his mother was only half human, after all. She could come back, somehow. She didn’t want to leave him, he knew that, because she had told him so again and again. 

She never came back.

“Are you all right, Didi?” Lan Huan is watching him with knowing eyes. Lan Huan is glad to be returning to School, Lan Zhan knows; he has spent the holiday scribbling long notes to his sworn brothers Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao and laughing over their replies, when he isn’t practicing his flying or working out new spells on the xiao. Lan Zhan nods wordlessly. He is not sick, and there is nothing to be done about his worries, so “all right” will have to suffice.

“You know…” says Lan Huan, carefully. “It doesn’t matter which House you’re sorted into.

Lan Zhan blinks. “Lans are always in Ravenclaw,” he says.

“Someone has to be the first, for everything that happens in the world,” says Lan Huan, watching him. Lan Qiren is down at the other end of the boat; if he were here he would certainly have a thing or two to say about the superiority of Ravenclaw, and about having pride in one’s noble Lan heritage - but he isn’t here. “Nie Mingjue is in Gryffindor, and Meng Yao is in Slytherin, and they are the best people I know. Ravenclaw is just one House. You don’t have to belong to it, if it doesn’t fit, Didi. You will still be Lan Zhan, and my brother, if you are in Slytherin, or Hufflepuff - or Gryffindor, like Mamma.”

“Mn,” says Lan Zhan. 

He does not smile, but his shoulders relax a little as he stares out over the Li River, oblivious to the beautiful vista of mountains and greenery and darting cormorants, thinking about his mother’s laughing face.

* * * 

The first time Lan Zhan sees Wei Ying, he is the centre of a laughing knot of children jostling and elbowing one another on the docks. Lan Zhan hangs back; he has never liked noise or crowds, but there is something about the boy with the red ribbon that catches his eye and holds it.

“...and then he _ate it!_” the boy with the red ribbon whoops, and the boy in the violet robe punches his arm.

“You said it was a raisin! I was five!”

“Did you really eat a rabbit poop?” asks a small boy in red robes, his eyes huge.

“I spat it straight out,” says the boy in violet, scowling. “Obviously.”

Lan Zhan frowns. This does not seem like very appropriate behaviour, and he can already hear Lan Qiren’s disapproving words, but - but the boy’s whole face lights up when he laughs, and his whole body is doubled up and shaking, and there’s something about his unselfconscious delight that reminds Lan Zhan of his mother’s laughter. He can’t drag his eyes away.

“Who are they?” he asks Lan Huan, as they pass the little knot of Juniors. 

Lan Huan glances back; his eyes have been scouring the crowds of children pouring up the hill from the docks, searching for his two particular friends, but he spares a moment to skim the little group that has caught Lan Zhan’s interest.

“Yunmeng Jiang, and Qishan Wen, and...I don’t know. Wen Qing is very clever, I know that - you’d think she’d be in Ravenclaw with us, for how often she’s in the library buried in books. Oh - Jiang Yanli is in Hufflepuff - she’s nice, but I don’t know the others. Looks like that’s her little brother, though, at a guess.”

“Hufflepuff,” says Lan Zhan, thoughtfully.

* * * 

When the leathery hat calls out his name, Lan Zhan straightens his back and walks towards it, frowning hard. It settles over his head like a warm hand, rubbing against his hair and clinging uncomfortably to his skin, and he can feel the press and whisper of its magic insinuating its way right inside his head. It makes him shudder, but he sits straight and endures it, because this is what one must do.

“What have we here?” says a jolly, inhuman croak that he does not hear with his ears. “Another little Lan for Ravenclaw? But no - you’re Bai Mei’s boy, aren’t you? Interesting. Veela heritage...your magic tastes piquant, you know - something quite out of the way.” There is something thoroughly disconcerting about the half-obscene relish with which the hat communicates this idea - a sense of lips being smacked in lingering appreciation. “Hmm. Well, you’re certainly bright enough, and you’ve got a flair for innovation...you wouldn’t do badly in Ravenclaw, if you wanted to join your brother, but I don’t think it’s where you belong, do you? Not really.”

“Mn,” thinks Lan Zhan. The boy with the red ribbon went into Gryffindor. 

“Yes, you’re headstrong enough, and you’ve got pluck and courage in abundance, my boy, and a reckless streak as wide as the Li River. I think you’re a Gryffindor - but what do YOU think, little Veela?” 

“Yes,” says Lan Zhan with all his heart, thinking of his mother. “Gryffindor.”

“_Gryffindor!_” announces the hat, in a voice that rings through the Great Hall, and cheers ring out from the long Gryffindor Table. Lan Zhan meets his brother’s eyes as he steps away from the hat, and Lan Huan is smiling, although Lan Qiren’s face is puckered up into an expression of disapproval on the High Table. 

Nie Mingjue waves in welcome. The boy with the red ribbon is applauding and beaming at him as though he’s done something special. Lan Zhan dares to hope that it will all be all right.

* * * 

Gryffindor. Gryffindor. Gryffindor. Of course his mother will be proud if he’s in Hufflepuff, and he wants her to be proud of him, quite desperately, but she already has Jiang Yanli in her own old House, and Jiang Cheng yearns for his father’s approval like a flower yearns for sunlight. Gryffindor. It has to be Gryffindor. “Achieve the Impossible” is their motto, and Jiang Cheng will be Sect Leader one day.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Wei Wuxian had gone into Ravenclaw, as Jiang Cheng had half expected - but he didn’t. So it has to be Gryffindor.

Gryffindor.

The hat lowers itself onto his head and its inhuman magic ripples out over him like a blanket. 

“Hufflepuff!” its voice rings out immediately, gleeful and certain, and Jiang Cheng’s heart drops into his shoes.

* * * 

“Well, you’re a pretty little puzzle, my boy,” says the hat. Its voice echoes oddly inside his head, and it sounds thoroughly stymied. “Not Ravenclaw, I think, although you’re not a simpleton by any means. And not Gryffindor, because you’re not going to throw yourself into danger for the sake of it like that lot. But...hmm. Slytherin or Hufflepuff? Slytherin or Hufflepuff? You’ve the kind of labyrinthine mind that would excel in Slytherin, you know. But you don’t particularly enjoy all that jockeying for power for its own sake, now do you? And the things you’d be scheming for are the things that Hufflepuffs take for granted, because that’s what makes you happy, isn’t it? You’re actually not that bothered about impressing anyone else, or bickering over the pecking order - you just want to relax with your friends and take it easy. And you’re good at friendships - you’d fit right in, at least on the face of it. Hmm. Slytherin or Hufflepuff?”

“Hufflepuff,” thinks Nie Huaisang, quite definitely.

“Hufflepuff!” declares the Sorting Hat, at the top of its nonexistant lungs.

* * * 

“What? Hufflepuff? Wens do not get sorted into Hufflepuff!” snarls Wen Xu.

“They do now,” says Wen Qing lightly, watching her little brother make his way hesitantly over to the cheering Hufflepuff table, where they welcome him like he’s just won the Quidditch World Cup. He is going to be surrounded by friends before he knows it. The hat had barely touched his head before it sang out his destination; she wonders whether it even bothered to speak to him. 

When it had been her turn, the year before, she had had to be her most persuasive to convince it not to sort her into Ravenclaw. She had agreed with its reasoning, but pointed out that she could continue to be brilliant in Slytherin just as easily as anywhere else, and if she didn’t want to lose face with her family she needed to be in Slytherin, where All Wens Go. The hat had evidently concluded that having such a keen awareness of family politics and the need for compromise to get what you want was in fact a sufficiently Slytherin quality that she was probably right.

“You know he’s never been quite the same since that incident with the dementor…” she says, shrugging with feigned nonchalance and digging her nails into the palms of her hands as Wen Xu sneers.

“True,” he says. “He’s sickly, isn’t he? Won’t make old bones - I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the creatures in the Forbidden Forest gets him before the end of First Term. Wouldn’t want him embarrasing Slytherin.”

“Certainly not,” agrees Wen Qing, smiling mildly. “Now it can be Hufflepuff’s problem. Would you like another dumpling?”

* * * 


	2. Chapter 2

Lan Zhan is kind of quiet and boring, really, but for some reason Wei Ying absolutely cannot leave him alone. 

“Come on, Lan Zhan, surely that’s enough now?” says Wei Ying, who was bored to death of the library a good thirty minutes ago. Lan Zhan blinks at him with those astonishing honey-coloured eyes, and Wei Ying groans. “Why aren’t you in Ravenclaw? You’re _such_ a Ravenclaw!” 

“You do not have to stay,” Lan Zhan points out, stiffly. 

“Neither do you! Come on, it’s only our first week here - we don’t have to do exams for ages yet, and we’ve already finished all the homework they set us. Don’t you want to explore?”

“Qiren Laoshi said that exploring was forbidden,” says Lan Zhan, looking genuinely confused.

Wei Ying rolls his eyes. “Come _on_,” he says. “I heard there are qilin out past the Stone Forest!”

“There are,” says Lan Zhan, who has not stinted on his research. “Also huli jing, and pixiu, and many other creatures and yaoguai. It is a safe haven. We are not allowed to go there.”

“Lan _Zhan!_” Wei Ying says, woefully. “You are no fun at all! Where’s your spirit of adventure? Jiang Cheng would come with me!”

“Magical creatures do not belong to humans,” says Lan Zhan. “They are not there for our entertainment. Neither you nor Jiang Wanyin should disturb them.”

It occurs to Wei Ying, a little belatedly, that Lan Zhan is, at least technically, part magical creature on his mother’s side. There is a story there, he knows; Jiang Yanli might have the details, or at least know someone who does. He should ask.

“I don’t want to _hurt_ them,” he says, defensively. “Or, or kidnap them, or anything. I just want to explore, Lan Zhan!” 

Wei Ying makes his eyes huge and imploring, but Lan Zhan continues to paint exquisite words in exquisite lines onto the page. 

“It isn’t even homework, Lan Zhan!” he wails. 

“You do not need to stay here.”

“Fine,” says Wei Ying, pouting. “I won’t. I’m going to have an adventure without you, and then you’ll be sorry.”

He is very much hoping that Lan Zhan will stop him, or abandon this completely unnecessary extra work that he’s set himself, but Wei Ying makes it all the way to the door of the library and beyond without Lan Zhan calling him back.

“Bother,” he says to himself, once he’s outside. Well, fine then. Wei Ying doesn’t need anyone else to help him.

He considers, briefly, whether he should go and find Jiang Cheng - but Jiang Cheng has been behaving weirdly ever since they arrived and got sorted into different Houses. Wei Ying has tried suggesting that they go back to Lan Qiren and try to explain that the Hat made a mistake, but Jiang Cheng got really angry at that, and insisted that Wei Ying was insulting his mother by saying such a thing, and then he had stomped off to hang out with his new Hufflepuff friends, pointedly ignoring Wei Ying. 

The new Hufflepuff friends seem pretty nice, actually, but Jiang Cheng clearly doesn’t want to share, so Wei Ying has just made sad eyes at them, and Wen Ning has waved apologetically, and Nie Huaisang has winked from behind his fan.

Jiang Cheng can really be a pain in the neck sometimes. 

Wei Ying has been walking idly away from the Library in the general direction of the Stone Forest as he ponders these things. It’s getting dark, but there are untethered lanterns glowing like fat little moons all through the grounds; not lining the path towards the Stone Forest, though, where flight practice and quidditch competitions take place. Wei Ying’s feet find themselves heading down the unlit path almost of their own volition.

He hears the laughter before he sees them, and it draws his footsteps on despite the fact that the skies are fading through a hundred shades of rose and gold and violet while bats are flitting through the air, darting and swooping after small insects. It will be dark in the Stone Forest, he knows, but Wei Ying knows a talisman to create a ball of light - he found it in one of the advanced books, and he practiced it and practiced it. He won’t create it just yet, though, because he isn’t sure that he wants to draw anyone’s attention, and it’s still light enough to see.

It takes Wei Ying a few moments to work out who the figures are that are swooping through the air on their swords playing some elaborate game of tag. But then he recognises Nie Mingjue, from his own house, and in that case the others are obvious - Lan Zhan’s older brother, and standing on the sword behind him, with arms tightly clasped around his waist, that must be the dimply Slytherin with the long eyelashes that the two of them are permanently attached to.

Wei Ying watches, fascinated, as the swords dip and wheel between the towering limestone formations. He’s played tag enough times with Jiang Cheng, using the broad practice swords, and he’s seen adult cultivators using their swords to fly, very dignified and elegant, but it’s something altogether different to see teenagers swooping around in gleeful whirligigs like this, diving and dipping and circling one another, racing in circles and pulling showy trick manouveurs that Wei Ying’s hungry gaze memorises and categorises and contemplates improving. 

“Ready?” calls somebody - he thinks it’s Nie Mingjue. Nie Huaisang’s brother is in sixth year already, and he looks like a grown man with his feet poised on his saber and his arms spread wide for balance. He doesn’t have the grace of Lan Xichen, but he radiates power, and he flies with reckless speed that makes Wei Ying’s heart race with envy. 

“Ready,” calls somebody else, bright and daring, and Wei Ying’s mouth falls open as Lan Xichen’s sword swoops down and the Slytherin - Meng Yao - lets go and throws himself through the air, hundreds of feet up, arms outstretched, and lands graceful and neat on the saber behind Nie Mingjue. Meng Yao is laughing, a bright silvery sound, as he wraps his arms around Mingjue’s waist and presses himself up against the broad back in front of him and the two of them go darting around another limestone formation.

“That doesn’t look very safe,” says Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying jumps. 

“I didn’t hear you,” he says, trying to hide the way that his heart warms at the sight of the other boy. “I thought you weren’t coming?”

“Mm,” says Lan Zhan noncommittally.”

“Your brother’s really good,” says Wei Ying. “They’re on their House Quidditch teams, aren’t they, Lan Xichen and Nie Mingju?”

“Mm.”

“I want to do that,” he says, wistfully.

“Then you will.” Lan Zhan sounds quietly certain, and Wei Ying beams.

“What about you? Do you want to be on the Quidditch Team?”

Lan Zhan shrugs. He is not, Wei Ying has observed, particularly competitive - which is a shame, because he seems to be ridiculously good at everything. It’s the first time that Wei Ying has really had anyone else who can keep up with him. 

“I bet you’d be good,” he says, elbowing Lan Zhan. “I bet you love to fly.”

Lan Zhan shrugs. “It is in our blood,” he says softly, watching his brother, alone now, swooping and skirling through the air weightlessly, robes flapping like a banner beneath the flag of his ink-black hair, laughing out loud for the sheer joy of flight.


	3. Chapter 3

“This isn’t our secret,” says Lan Zhan, frowning. 

“It is now!” says Wei Ying, gleefully; he looks ready to do cartwheels as they dart back through the Stone Forest. “Oh, come on Lan Zhan - we can’t un-know what we know! And we’re not going to tell on them, right?” Wei Ying narrows his eyes. “You’re not going to go running off to tell your uncle, just because he’s the Deputy Head?”

“....no,” admits Lan Zhan. His expression is still mutinous. Wei Ying rolls his eyes.

“Don’t be such a miseryguts! This is amazing!”

“They are breaking the rules,” says Lan Zhan. Wei Ying snorts, because the number of times he has heard this phrase invoked over the past two years of their friendship is far beyond counting at this point. “_Important_ rules,” Lan Zhan clarifies. He has, with reluctance, been persuaded to acknowledge that there is a difference between rules that are worth fighting for, and rules that some long-dead cultivator insisted upon for reasons that might not actually be all that important, which might perhaps be worked around.

“Look, it’s Nie Mingjue’s last year at school. If he were going to go on a crazy werewolf rampage and eat everyone once a month, I think we’d have noticed. Clearly they’re managing the situation. And they’re managing the situation by doing something _unbelievably cool_, and I demand you help me research it right now so we can do it too.”

Lan Zhan blinks. “You want to research?”

Wei Ying’s grin unfurls at the startled look on Lan Zhan’s face; it is not, admittedly, an expression that Jiang Cheng would be able to distinguish from Lan Zhan’s ordinary default look, but Wei Ying has had nearly two years of close observation at this point, and he is now perfectly fluent in Lan Zhan. The slight widening of the eyes and the suggestion of elevated eyebrows mean genuine surprise. 

“Ha! Yeah, baby, I want to research. We're going to the _library_. We're going to read so many books, Ravenclaw will be fighting to get us transferred.”

“Oh!”

“See, _now_ you’re interested. You’re so easy, Lan Zhan!”

* * * 

Lan Zhan is a little bit hurt that his brother did not tell him about being an animagus, but he thinks he can understand why Lan Huan wanted to keep it secret. It is entirely unthinkable that the First Jade of Lan would violate not just Lan Clan rules but actual Cultivation Laws in this way - and yet Lan Zhan knows that if it were Wei Ying who needed help, Wei Ying who had been bitten by a werewolf, he too would have done whatever it took to keep his best friend safe. And the strategy seems to have been successful.

Lan Zhan can’t rid himself of the mental image of the white Samoyed cuddling up against the massive werewolf, licking his muzzle, with the little ferret curled up small and helpless between their paws. The three of them looked disarmingly content; it is a very good thing that Wei Ying’s talisman had shrouded their scents as well as rendering them invisible to the much-admired trio, because he’s fairly sure that Nie Mingjue’s calm demeanour would not have survived realising he was being spied upon. Wei Ying really is remarkably ingenious and creative when it comes to talisman work; sometimes Lan Zhan marvels at the fact that Wei Ying wasn’t sorted into Ravenclaw. 

It is really a very impressive piece of magic that the three of them have performed; Lan Zhan does not know how long ago Lan Huan and Meng Yao achieved their mastery of these forms, but it would be an impressive achievement for grown adults, never mind for teenagers; he is quite surprised that Meng Yao is skillful enough, but then Lan Huan always says that people underestimate his younger sworn brother. 

Lan Qiren would almost certainly consider it ridiculous (not to mention completely inappropriate and indeed illegal) for Wei Ying to suggest that the two of them should replicate this complex magic at the tender age of twelve, but Lan Zhan knows his own abilities and those of his best friend, and he thinks they will succeed. What’s more, he is perfectly well aware that if he does not help Wei Ying, Wei Ying will go ahead and do it alone anyway - or inveigle his bad-tempered brother into joining him in the endeavour. 

It is clearly much better that Lan Zhan be involved, in order to keep the damage and danger to a minimum.

* * * 

“Once we’ve managed this, we should learn how to summon a Patronus,” says Wei Ying sunnily.

Lan Zhan nods. It is not a bad idea. 

“Are you ready?” Wei Ying is looking at him, and although it sounds like a challenge, there’s an inflection in there that tells Lan Zhan that if the answer is no, they will stop. 

The arrays inscribed into the dirt are perfect; the location has the best possible feng shui. Song Lan is covering for them, although he does not know precisely why. They have researched this magic very thoroughly; Lan Zhan does not approve of breaking rules, but he does approve of knowledge, and breaking into the Forbidden Section of the library triggered only the most reflexive of protests.

“Ready.”

Wei Ying has already wriggled out of his clothes and is standing naked on the other side of the clearing; Lan Zhan, embarrassed more than he has been by nearly two years of communal bathing, keeps his gaze averted as he carefully removes his own layers and folds them neatly. He removes the ribbon from his forehead last of all, feeling absurdly more naked and vulnerable with that sliver of pale silk gone from his skin. The grass is wet and prickly against his bare feet.

It requires blood, of course - although tears would do just as well, or any other bodily fluid, but blood feels the least undignified. Lan Zhan takes a deep, steadying breath, and slashes carefully at his arm, sending spatters of hot blood scattering over the array and igniting its power. The talismans hanging above each array go up in flames, the scorch of smoke and burnt blood filling the air in the clearing.

The magic lifts up out of the array like a live thing, unspooling itself and hovering for a moment while Lan Zhan stares, wide-eyed, at the scribbled fire hanging in the air; then it plunges straight at him, and it is all he can do not to flinch as the flickering brightness sinks into his skin and twines its way through his veins and arteries, smoothing its way along muscle and bone and licking prickly tongues of insubstantial flame against his skin from the inside. He shudders, and meets Wei Ying’s gaze. This is not _pain_ precisely, but it is an intrusion, an alien sensation, an insinuating violation that curls his toes and makes him want to claw at his skin and run screaming. Lan Zhan grits his teeth and wills himself to accept the visceral rush of disgust. He knew this was coming. Of course it would feel wrong at first. He closes his eyes. 

Movement ripples through him; a concatenation of sensation spilling from one cell to the next like an explosion, tearing him apart and remaking him in an instant. It is something beyond pain or pleasure, and it leaves him breathless and thoughtless, momentarily as clean as a blank page, before sense and memory settle gently down and sink back into the newly-wrought flesh. 

A very long moment later Lan Zhan looks across the clearing to see a magpie perching where Wei Ying had stood in the centre of his array, cocking its head and staring back at him with bright and knowing eyes. He would smile, if he could; he should have guessed at a creature such as this, clever and quick and curious, its movements as swift as Wei Ying’s darting mind. He wonders what shape his own flesh has taken. Stretches, and feels wings of his own spreading, feathers splaying wide; before he has had time to process the thought, Lan Zhan is already hurling himself up into the sky, hollow bones borne on the currents, air licking at the delicate machinery of his feathers, joy radiating through every inch of his reshaped body. 

A heartbeat later, Wei Ying flings himself up into the air in pursuit.

* * * 

“You were a crane, of course!” says Wei Ying, afterwards, when he thinks to ask. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are bright, and he is brimming with the same exhilaration Lan Zhan still feels ringing through his body. Their eyes meet for a long moment, full of things that could not be put into human words. “You were perfect! Everything was perfect!”

Lan Zhan pulls his robes back on in a daze. He very much wants to discuss this with Lan Huan, but he can hardly tell his brother that they have stumbled onto his secret - that they know Nie Mingjue is a werewolf, and that the other two boys are breaking the law. That he and Wei Ying are now breaking the law in their turn. He glances over at Wei Ying, who is pulling on his boots. 

“You were a magpie,” he says. His mouth feels the wrong shape. Wei Ying glances up again and catches his eye once more, and in the other boy’s gaze he sees the knowledge that these human labels are lies, arbitrary syllables that convey nothing of what they both were. 

Still are, beneath the skin. 

Lan Zhan smiles.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it from the bottom of his heart.


	4. Chapter 4

Meng Yao has seen it coming for a long while, and this time, when he arrives home at the end of term and watches the way calculating eyes follow him in from the street and Auntie’s gaze takes in the added inches of his growth spurt and then narrows, a sense of inevitability fills him. His smile falters for a moment, then stretches into something bright and guarded. He had been afraid of this, looking at his reflection in the mirror, but he is prepared.

“Home at last! Come into my parlour, darling. You’re getting too big for that little room; we must discuss your future,” says Auntie, beckoning him. It’s morning - too late or too early for customers, and the girls will all be sleeping. Only Auntie and the cleaners and the hired muscle are awake and working.

Everyone calls her Auntie; he has never known her real name.

Meng Yao’s hand tightens on his pack, and he considers just turning tail; it would probably be the smartest move, but he finds he can’t quite bring himself to do it. There might still be a way of talking himself out of trouble, and this is the only home he has ever known, imperfect as it is.

He knows, even as the parlour door closes behind him, that he is being a fool. He watches her pouring tea, treating him with the elaborate courtesies she would use to sweeten a difficult client, and he braces himself as he accepts the dainty cup. His hand does not shake.

“A Yao,” says Auntie, her tone like honey and her eyes like chips of ice, “It’s time, dear. You’re old enough to pay off your debt properly now.”

He lowers his eyes as he bows, radiating respect as he calculates his path out of the building and sorts through escape routes to safety. 

“Auntie has told me that my work here is useful. I pay my way.” The space he takes up in a half-converted store-room during the school holidays would not be room enough for anyone else to sleep, let alone entertain clients. It’s a humble enough spot, a fraction of the size of the room his mother used to share with him, but it’s all he has, and it has been sufficient - but he has always known that he was living on borrowed time.

She makes a hissing sound of discontent and pouts; she was a noted beauty once, and she still has all the mannerisms down to a tee. “Small magics, A Yao. Gimcrack talismans. You save me some money, it’s true, but it’s still not enough to cover the cost of keeping you, let alone the debt you still owe from your mother’s medicine or her funeral.”

He knows this is a lie. If he had not received his Letter the day after his mother’s funeral...but he did, and so for most of the past five years he has cost her nothing at all - only over the summer months, when he has been working for his keep. The School has never charged for its services; it is a point of pride among the Great Sects that they finance it between them.

Their eyes meet, and he sees the knowledge in her face, beneath the powder and paint. At fifteen he has become too valuable a commodity to be allowed to go unused; she has been considering what price he would make for at least two years, he knows; in a corner of his mind he appreciates her restraint. But in this, he will not be his mother’s son. 

A Yao wishes, with all his heart, that he were a stronger cultivator. He tries hard, and he has skill, but his friends had all been practicing for years before they went to School. He still has a lot of catching up to do.

“What do you have in mind?” he asks, watching her carefully. He does not have his own sword yet, and he is not very good at non-lethal forms of fighting. If she forces him to defend himself, one of them is liable to die.

Her smile is sharp; predatory; familiar. They understand one another well enough, but he will have her spell it out.

“Customers have been asking after you,” she acknowledges. “Auntie has put them off, A Yao - the Captain of the Guard has been asking after you ever since your mother died, but I told him you were far too young.” She pauses; they both know that other children, children without the tenuous protection of cultivator relatives or friends, have not been so fortunate at Auntie’s hands. “But your return has been much anticipated, and when they see you - well.” Her smile is full of sharp teeth. “The money on offer is...substantial.” 

“I see,” he says.

She looks him up and down, assessing; he feels like a helpless little pig in the market, being mentally turned into so much liver and trotter and intestine and belly fat in the observer’s eye. Meat. He knows that he’s pretty - too much his mother’s son, in perhaps too many ways. And he doesn’t have any other family - Mother had never identified his mysterious cultivator father, and she had no relatives of her own, as far as he knows. There has always been this danger hanging over his head, but it still seemed safer to stay in the one place he knew, the place where he grew up, than to try to venture out into the world alone.

No more.

“Substantial,” he echoes, smiling. “How flattering.”

She nods. Meng Yao is surprised to find that he isn’t really angry. This is Auntie’s job, after all, and she has allowed him to stay here on sufferance even without his mother paying his way. It could have been very much worse; now he is almost a grown man, and venturing out into the world alone doesn’t seem so daunting. Especially when he has friends.

“We could have an auction,” she says, watching him carefully. “For your first time. Get them bidding against one another. Dress you up like a handsome young crown prince - you’ll steal all their hearts, A Yao. And their money too. You’ll be the toast of our House, just as your mother once was.” Her smile widens in toothy anticipation. “They’ll come from far and wide just to catch a glimpse of you, and vie for the honour of a night in your favour.”

“But what if I don’t want to,” he says. 

Her face hardens. “This is not a charity,” she points out. And it isn’t, of course. Part of him really can’t blame her. Part of him wants to scratch her eyes out. “You are old enough to work, Meng Yao. More than old enough.” He is small for his age, bird-boned and sweet-mouthed, as his mother had been. He does not feel old enough for work such as this. “You owe me.”

“I think I’ve repaid you for Mother’s funeral, Auntie. And for her medicine. The talismans for cleanliness, and the ones to prevent any of the girls increasing. The music to soothe the clients, and stop them from growing resentful or aggressive. The talismans of health, and the glamours and the, ah, vitality charms. They would all have cost you dearly from another cultivator. You know that business has done better and better with my magic supporting it.” He dimples reflexively, and flutters his eyelashes, but she is entirely impervious to his charm.

“Perhaps,” she says. “But there are other ways you should be supporting it.” Her eyes rake him from top to toe. “You’re wasting time. This…” she makes a gesture that encompasses his clear skin and dimples, his willowy form and the gleaming ink tumble of his hair, “...won’t last forever.”

A Yao shrugs. Cultivators can live for centuries, and age slowly. He isn’t a strong cultivator yet, but he’s getting better every day. “Nevertheless,” he says, drawing a deep breath and telling himself that this is safe, this is fine, this is not going to get him killed or raped or turned into a convenient eunuch. “I regret that I am not for sale, Auntie.” 

“Everyone is for sale,” Auntie says, rolling her eyes. “Don’t think you’re so high and mighty, just because your mother fell pregnant with some self-involved cultivator’s seed. You’re one of us, boy. A few months a year spent at that fancy school doesn’t change that. You’re not like them.”

“I am myself,” says Mang Yao, stiffly. “And I am not for sale.”

Auntie’s eyes narrow. “You’re going to make it difficult? A bad choice, A Yao. A bad choice.”

She opens her mouth, but before she can call for her favourite enforcer, Meng Yao casts the Gusu Lan silencing spell that Lan Xichen taught him. He has been careful, over the years; Auntie knows only a fraction of the spells he can do. It always seemed safer that way. Her outraged expression only confirms that belief. Another quick talisman is sketched out, and abruptly Auntie’s body is frozen in place.

For a moment - rather a long moment - he hesitates, considering how he might make her suffer, now she is helpless and at his mercy. She would have been ruthless enough with him, he knows, if she had the upper hand. But the fact remains that she did let him stay on here, when his mother died and he was younger and far more vulnerable, and she did restrain herself from making his life as bad as it might have been. He has paid his way over the years, and he does not feel that he owes her anything, but - perhaps he too can show a little restraint and mercy.

“I can see that I have outstayed my welcome,” he says, meeting her eyes and offering her a deep bow while she vibrates with rage and frustration. “Thank you for your past kindnesses, Auntie. But I must be going.”

* * * 

He had considered the Cloud Recesses, of course, because Lan Xichen is always unfailingly kind, and would certainly have taken him in, if he had the power - but Lan Xichen does not make the decisions for Gusu Lan Clan. Meng Yao is acutely conscious that his status in the cultivation world is...tenuous, at best. He is not precisely welcome in Slytherin, as the half-blood son of a prostitute, but having made friends with two of the most powerful future sect leaders bought him a certain degree of safety and grudging tolerance among his fellows, even though those sect leaders were in different Houses. It is always wise to choose one’s friends with care.

So he had been tempted to try the Cloud Recesses, because he has always felt safe around Lan Xichen, but he does not know whether Lan Qiren would have turned him away - or at least sent him to some other clan. Lan Qiren does not, he think, approve of him very much. Does not consider him a good influence. Does not, perhaps, approve of the way that Lan Xichen’s eyes always follow Meng Yao, and the way his face lights up at the sight of him. Lan Xichen, the First Jade of Lan, is the most beautiful thing Meng Yao has ever seen or imagined, and Meng Yao trusts him implicitly, but Lan Qiren’s word is law in Gusu Lan.

Nie Mingjue is the most dangerous person he knows, one way or another, but he has always been careful with Meng Yao, and he has never been cruel to Nie Huaisang, however frustrated he might be with his younger brother. He thinks that Nie Mingjue will not turn him away. 

Probably. 

He is terrified that he might be wrong. 

Nie Mingjue has finished his seventh year and left School now, after all, and when they bid their farewells a week ago it was with the expectation that he would be leaving childish things behind and taking up his responsibilities in the Qinghe Nie Sect. He is eighteen years old, and a man grown. The last thing he needs is a homeless schoolboy of dishonourable birth cluttering up the UnClean Realm. Meng Yao is keenly aware that he has very little to offer.

And so although he is enough his mother’s son and enough a Slytherin that he has made sure his clothes are clean, and his tired body washed, and that there’s a certain artistry to the helpless flutter of his eyelashes, Meng Yao doesn’t have to pretend to be exhausted, or scared, or hungry, or small, or at his wits’ end when the suspicious guardsmen bring him into Nie Mingjue’s presence. 

“Da ge,” he says, sinking down to his knees in obeisance, and the word comes out almost as a sob. “Will you help me, please?”


End file.
